


Nocturnal Worlds

by riverdaze



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: BoKuroo Week 2020, Gay Bar, Gentle Kissing, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, LGBTQ Themes, Late at Night, M/M, Magical Realism, Rough Kissing, Sneaking Out, and probably fall to his death, barely, bokuto's going to give kuroo a heart attack, but kuroo tries not to think about it, but that was the idea, he thinks too much
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-07
Updated: 2020-04-07
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:28:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23535310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/riverdaze/pseuds/riverdaze
Summary: The sun has set. For the too-short hours of the night, the cat and the owl shed the concerns of the real world to join each other in a chase and dance, trying to ignore the ticking timer of that hateful sunrise.
Relationships: Bokuto Koutarou/Kuroo Tetsurou
Comments: 8
Kudos: 35





	Nocturnal Worlds

**Author's Note:**

> I'm just getting into more communal fandom culture, and late last night I found out today is the last day of Bokuroo week. So i dropped everything and wrote this. You know what? I don't regret it... well, except for the fact that I'm in A Mood and have been reading way too much literature recently so it turned out... well, you'll see. Please enjoy.
> 
> Prompt: Sunrise/sunset

Both the owl and the cat are creatures of the night. When the last of the sun’s orange rays disappear below the urban horizon, the crows and snakes and seabirds scurry away into their bunkers, and the respectable people of Tokyo settle into their homes for the night, that’s when the neon signs flash on, the world takes on a set of new rules, and the owl and the cat sneak out of their burrows for a few hours of invincibility.

Kuroo watched from his windowsill as the sun set and the sky darkened, blue to orange to pink to purple until stars dotted the night sky. His ears twitched at every straggling sound as the world of his suburban street quieted, and his parents settled themselves downstairs in front of the television.

When he deemed the noises few and far between, Kuroo took a deep breath, and slid open his window. His body twisted with feline grace to pull itself through the space, pads of his feet dropping silently onto his roof. He prowled along the edge of the tiles as if his tail swayed lazily behind him, providing a perfect counter-equilibrium. From the shingles of his house, he pounced onto the top of a fence and ran along its ledge until he could jump down to the empty sidewalk half a block away. As he made his dismount, a brown and white form meowed at him from the shadow of an unkempt lawn.

“Thanks, I’ve been practicing,” he whispered to it as he tightened his backpack and lopped off towards the train station. He didn’t bother to check his phone. He had more faith than that.

Not too many miles away, Bokuto had watched the sunset with impatient eagerness. From the balcony of his family’s highrise apartment, he could see the world seem to switch on below, lights and sounds and life appearing from the dark silence of dusk. Voices, unapologetically loud and boisterous, carried up through the air as if inviting him to join a world much better suited to him than the polite restrained society of daylight hours. 

His parents, who woke up at dawn, and his younger siblings, too inexperienced in the world to imagine anything else, had already fallen into their beds. His older siblings didn’t care what he did so long as he was finally, blessedly, quiet. As quiet as if he wasn’t even there.

Without concern for potential catastrophe, Bokuto stepped onto the ledge of his balcony and hopped to the one next door, city street blurring below him in the space between the two partitions. From there, he jumped on to the next, each new venture mimicking the tiny hops of a bird rearing up to take flight. He sped up and spread his arms, letting his feathers catch the wind so his feet didn’t touch a few of the balconies at all, soaring forty meters above the needless ground. The fresh nighttime air breezed through his hair and nipped playfully at his face, roseying up his nose and cheeks. Tears pricked at his eyes. 

“Woohoo!” Far enough from his own apartment, he hooted at the sky as he made the final jump onto the outside corner stairwell, wind kissing him goodbye as he found his footing and took the steps down entire flights at a time.

As he made his way to the station, the world blurred into nothing but the sound of his goal, of somewhere out there not too far away, a cat’s paws dodging the dangers of the night to make their way towards his call.

It was difficult to tell who made it there first, to that slice of a strange flawed utopia provided by a single bar in the crowded space of Shinjuku Area 2. The one whose doorman’s eyes seemed to glaze over ID’s with an intense disinterest.

The music inside beat with Bokuto’s heart and vibrated through the soles of Kuroo’s feet. A spotlight swept over a pair of eyes that shone with a reflective red glow, like a beacon to yellow irises that caught the flash. Having spotted his prey, Bokuto swooped in with single-minded intent, through moving bodies lost in the music and each other, only to find the space he had aimed for empty. He tilted his head with confusion, giving all the appearance of listening for a new cue as if the music didn’t deafen everything else. 

“Too slow,” a voice purred in his ear, arms thrown around his shoulders and chest pressed to his back. Any alarm in Bokuto immediately melted. He was a predator that didn’t mind becoming prey.

“Tetsu, I missed you,” he said to the ground, memories of suspicious eyes and unspoken threats-- his parent’s, Kuroo’s parents’s, strangers’-- swirling through his head.

“Hey now, none of that,” Kuroo said, seeing where Bokuto’s mind had wandered. He put his head over Boktuo’s shoulder and put a hand to Bokuto’s cheek so he could tilt his face just right. Their eyes met, and everything that didn’t need to be said, uncertainty regarding past and future, melted into the present. Bokuto smiled as his energy returned to him, and Kuroo near melted as well. Bokuto’s silver and black hair, too risky to style like usual, framed in loose waves those amber eyes that saw everything, all of Kuroo. Bokuto preened at the appreciative stare but had less patience for longing glances. He finished what Kuroo had started, bringing his hand to the back of Kuroo’s head and smashing their lips together with the eagerness of a well-executed hunt. 

Their mouths moved with unrefined practice, familiar and desperate and unable, even within these walls, to shake the tinge of fearful uncertainty.

The hand not holding Kuroo’s head reached back until Bokuto’s large palm slipped into the back pocket of Kuroo’s jeans, pushing Kuroo forward so the two of them stood pressed together, back to front. Kuroo’s chest hummed against Bokuto, his wordless sounds of encouragement escaping into Bokuto’s mouth, devoured without thought.

Not to be outdone, Kuroo brought his own unoccupied hand down for an adventure down the muscled plains of Bokuto’s back, one that ended when Kuroo simultaneously broke away from the kiss and pinched Bokuto’s ass. 

“Hey!” Bokuto arched in surprise. All he had time to register, though, was Kuroo’s smirk-- the one of a cat satisfied with knowing more than you ever could-- before his boyfriend’s weight disappeared into the crowd with a playful challenge.

Bokuto accepted it, diving back into the crowd with eager determination fueled by the way Kuroo’s long body danced through the masses. Somehow, he never seemed to touch anyone he didn’t want to as he curled and slid around gay couple after gay couple-- people just like them. Bokuto never saw Kuroo look back, and that fueled a feeling that he would almost call frustration if it didn’t feel so good.

What Bokuto didn’t notice were the corner of the eye glances Kuroo shot him whenever he turned through the crowd, watching the way Bokuto’s broad frame, his apparent strength and power, cleared the area in front of him like he’d issued a command. Kuroo shivered, hair standing on end, but refused to end his fun before he’d managed to get Bokuto properly riled up.

Whenever he found a solo dancer, and he was sure Bokuto was watching, he joined for a fleeting moment, lightly grinding and allowing stray hands before disappearing again into the crowd. Bokuto whined low in his throat. Every time he thought he had Kuroo, he slipped away back into someone else’s arms. 

At some point, too hot and eager to think about it, Bokuto found himself caught by the music, by the rhythm, by the life thriving unbothered around him. He laughed, loud, unbothered. He was pulled into a dance and, though he didn’t forget his partner, he didn’t move away. It was euphoric, for a moment, to have the masculine lines of a stranger’s body against his and not have to think, to worry, to make a nervous joke. Here he was normal. Here he could stand out in only the ways he wanted to. Here he could fly without worrying about the sun.

And Kuroo didn’t know how to feel about it, because when he next snuck a glance at his pursuer, his heart jumped and spun, turning green with envy but melting in awe. The lights danced with Bokuto as he laughed at the ceiling and basked in the attention, preening and showing off his wingspan with a carelessness unsuited for such a powerful predator, one that needed to stay hidden to thrive. How, though, could Kuroo ever begrudge him his happiness? His pet extrovert, fueled in these stolen hours by the praise and recognition, pride for who he was, that couldn’t be gotten anywhere else in their lives.

He prowled closer, needing a better look as much as with the knowledge that he was Bokuto’s impulse control. And also, maybe, to make sure he hadn’t been forgotten, to make it clear that this version of Bokuto was _his_. 

His earlier victory, Bokuto’s natural give into the role of prey, had made Kuroo complacent. The moment he was within range, talons shot out and curled possessively around his arm, an unbreakable grip that would crush the bones of lesser animals.

“Got ya!” Bokuto stepped forward, happy, glowing, hypnotizing. Why would Kuroo ever want to escape? He leaned in and left a nuzzling kiss on Bokuto’s cheek. Bokuto hooted and indulged in the meal he’d worked so hard for. Both of his hands--rough and covered in the cuts and scrapes of a creature with, Kuroo thought fondly, a lot of luck and no sense of self-preservation--took Kuroo’s cheeks and he pressed their lips together once again. This time, though, Bokuto was alight with that frenetic energy that disavowed any remembrance of frightening ‘almosts’ and close calls. Nerves? Fear? While Kuroo could never truly forget them, Bokuto, at that moment, possessed no concept of such frivolous things. It was a trait Kuroo admired to the point of adoration, and also took immense pleasure in as Boktuo moved his tongue along the top of Kuroo’s bottom lip.

He gasped, all that previous smug arrogance drained, and Bokuto, recognizing that he had won, let go of Kuroo’s face to instead grab at his narrow hips, the sharp lines of which felt beyond satisfying underneath his hands. Kuroo was the only man Bokuto had ever held like this-- and maybe that hadn’t always been by choice, maybe there had been other contesters once upon a time, ones taken by the bite of social expectations that lived in the eyes and mouths of each of his teachers and classmates-- but maybe he could say now it didn’t even matter, because Kuroo was the only one Bokuto wanted to hold like this, close, intimate, spellbound.

Kuroo’s back hit a wall, and any air left in him was knocked out with a bang. His hands moved from wrinkling helplessly in Bokuto’s shirt to sliding up his shoulders and pulling at his thick hair.

Someone wolf-whistled and a strangled, but decidedly pleased, sound caught in Bokuto’s throat as he pushed forward to slot his hips between Kuroo’s long legs. Kuroo would have laughed if he weren’t so busy being grateful. 

Music seeped in from the wall through Kuroo’s back, vibrating through his entire body until the sound was indecipherable from the feeling. In Bokuto’s chest, it powered each of his deafening heartbeats until he was overcharged, full enough to do anything, to give Kuroo the world if he asked.

He wouldn’t, though, because how could Kuroo want for anything right now? He melted into his boyfriend and, for an instant, without the ability to hear anything but bass or see or feel anything but Bokuto, Kuroo allowed the outside world to blur away and disappear...

……......

……......

……......

The moment had to end when Bokuto’s mouth left Kuroo’s to instead peck at his exposed neck. Kuroo let it continue for a second until he decided Bokuto was paying too much attention to a single sliver of skin.

“Babe,” he murmured, using his grip on Bokuto’s hair to pull him back, leaving behind a trail of desperate whines. “Shh, babe, no marks,” he soothed without substance. How could the reminder be anything but intolerable?

“But... but, _Tetsuro_ ,” Bokuto demanded, yet his voice grew more resigned with each syllable. The spell slipped, and sticky realities leaked into the cracks all over again. “But I love you,” Bokuto tried, already knowing it couldn’t compete. 

“I know.” He let go of Bokuto’s hair in favor of wrapping his arms around him, an action reciprocated with twice the force until Kuroo couldn’t breath, he didn’t want to. “I love you, too, Koutarou.”

“Tetsuro!” Whatever reality Kuroo had been forced to instill in Bokuto couldn’t survive those words, not right here and right now. Bokuto forgot the moment of awareness in favor of laughing and lifting Kuroo off the ground as elation spilled through him. He was loved for who he was, what else could matter? That infectious euphoria danced with shared laughter, enveloping them in a new, different kind of romantic physical freedom, one defined by playful strokes and soft giggles.

They moved back into and through the dancefloor-- never leaving each other-- until their breaths came labored and a dip in the music opened up the floor to the bar.

They found themselves sitting at a tiny round table in the corner, balanced on stools, and ordering a little snack platter only on the menu by obligation, staying away from the drinks that were supposed to invite attention. Alcohol wasn’t the point. They weren’t here for the kind of furtive satisfaction come with flashing a fake ID and never facing a consequence. They were here, in this dubious corner of the world, because it was the only mutually attainable portal they had found where, for a few hours at a time, the world changed, and they could exist as they were to their hearts’ content until the glass slipper fell off and the spell was broken.

It was here that they could close their eyes and not worry who saw them lean against each other for support as their breaths slowed, and they stole a little moment of shared peace.

And alcohol, Kuroo perhaps more than Bokuto noted, wasn’t conducive to making leaps off of balconies fifteen stories up. But Kuroo didn’t let the thought catch, didn’t imagine even for an instant the lengths Bokuto went through to make this happen every week. Right now, shoulder to shoulder with the ability to lean in and leave a kiss on Bokuto’s tempting cheek, it became inconsequential, it became an easily wiped away blight on the otherwise all-encompassing truth that, right here and now, they were _invincible_. 

And as their time wound down, sunrise-- and therefore the awakening of Bokuto’s parents-- approaching, they were never quite ready to let go of each other, of that power, entirely. Under the continuing cover of darkness, their hands stayed intertwined, palm to sweaty palm, as they darted out of the nightclub into the perilous streets. They did what cats and owls did best, and used the nighttime, the shadows and the dark twinkling sky, to their advantage, avoiding being seen as they made their way back to the train station. 

But as the dark sky went from black to blue, as their invulnerability slipped away into the night as well, a prickling awareness itched at the backs of their minds. An alleyway and a fallen trashcan had Kuroo’s hackles raised, and he led Bokuto to slip away with him through an impossible space to avoid it. Boisterous laughter split the air, not of the freeing euphoric cadence of the night, but the kind with a crueler tint that ruffled Bokuto’s feathers. He swooped over a fence, Kuroo in tow, to stay unseen.

As they approached the station, and the sky turned damning pink, their hands fell apart.

They each found the lockers where they had stored their bags, and from them came hoodies and sweatpants. Away were hidden tight jeans and a rainbow bracelet.

Metting up again, they climbed the stairs to the platform one, one-and-a-half, two meters apart. At the top, they sat on opposite sides of a bench. Past the empty track, this small all-encompassing area of Tokyo spread out in front of them, providing a truth, a reality, Kuroo felt all too cowardly to accept, one Bokuto couldn’t see at all without also seeing the ruins of a scholarship, of a future spent doing what, if not who, he loved scattered along its streets. And that almost wasn’t even the problem, wasn’t a concern, if only Bokuto knew Kuroo didn’t see the same thing. 

“Kuroo, I don’t need volleyball. It isn’t that great,” he said to the skyline for the hundredth time, oranges blossoming above the horizon.

“Yes it is,” Kuroo shot back. Bokuto lifted his shoulders and ducked into the collar of his jacket.

“It’s not, though,” he pouted into the fabric.

“Oh, I guess you’ll just make it by with your stellar grades instead, then,” Kuroo pounced, claws still sharp despite, or maybe because of-- a cornered animal is a dangerous thing-- the approaching light.

Bokuto sunk in his seat and stared at his sneakers. 

“Ah, shit.” A sigh. “I’m sorry, Bo. I didn’t mean it.”

Bokuto hummed. Kuroo stayed silent. People were beginning to appear on the platform and the words he wanted to say, the ‘ _I love you_ ’s and the ‘ _babe_ ’s were stuck in the annals of his calculating mind.

The sun crested the first building, orange light piercing between them as they averted their gaze, the glare unsuited for nocturnal vision. It was too bad, Kuroo thought, Bokuto’s eyes would be indescribable, invaluable, shimmering and golden, in the sunlight. Instead, they watched the shadows dissipate as the sun rose with a sense of hateful dread

Bokuto tilted his head, hearing the high pitched whine of the approaching train. The closer it got, though, the less audible it became, his acute hearing dissipating in the exhaustion of the morning rays.

The sky turned baby blue.

Kuroo stood up, stumbling slightly, drowsiness, daylight, stealing the feline balance of the night. He wasn’t looking forward to making it back up to his window. On the other side of the bench, Bokuto, mood spiraling to some unreachable crash site, wondered if, without his feathers, he would fall. If he did, would it be ruled an accident?

The train slowed in front of them with a screech. A suicide?

Kuroo, as his eyes blurred, looked at Bokuto, thinking of warm hands on his cheeks.

“Please be careful... bro.” A murder?

Bokuto kicked at the floor before looking up. The train, doors sliding open, blocked the sunrise. Good.

“I will, bro.”

It felt like a murder.

He couldn’t hear anything, not even his stomping dragging steps, as he boarded the train. He looked away from the light coming in through the opposing windows.

As the train left the station, Kuroo, alone, watched the sunrise.

**Author's Note:**

> ya, i know. like i said, A Mood & literature. sorry if it's a little too much. Also, how is it i've written a total of two (2) Bokuroo fics and Both turned out to lean heavily into lgbtq+ themes? idk. I guess maybe these boys put me in a mood. i just want them to be happy, i promise. 
> 
> Anyway, I hope you liked it. Criticism welcome.
> 
> [my tumblr](https://phantomangofics.tumblr.com)


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